


Just Because

by JaqofSpades



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: 12daysofficmas, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaqofSpades/pseuds/JaqofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not even Veronica Mars any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Because

She pushed herself away from the table and groaned, replete. Who knew there was such a thing as too much food? Veronica Mars, girl detective – getting to the bottom of Christmas dinner since god knows when …

  


 

Not that she was a girl any more. She wasn't even Veronica Mars any more. Mostly, she was “mama,” and “Vero” and to the kids at school, “Mrs Navarro.” She'd graduated high school, graduated college, and then been graduated from the FBI with a shattered elbow and a permanent limp.

 

Desk work was even less fun than it sounded, so she'd come back to Neptune to visit her Dad while she figured out what to do with herself. Her visit had turned into a life when Eli Navarro had roared up, still a creature of leather and chrome and that dark, steady gaze that made her pulse thrum.

 

One minute they were flirting, the next they were doing highly illegal things on the back of a Harley, and then she was walking down the aisle, kissing her Dad on the cheek with a teary “thank you” before turning to slip into another skin.

 

Veronica Navarro had five children, taught journalism and ethics down at Neptune High, and lived nowhere near the 09, even if the rambling old house up on the bluff had sea views and a Mercedes convertible outside. She was the moderately obedient wife to the modestly wealthy head of the Latino Chamber of Commerce, and if life was boring sometimes, well, she'd earned it. They both had.

 

And if Weevil and V occasionally slipped out to roar up the PCH in the dead of night, and the Fitzpatrick family found their financial information regularly found its way to the IRS, they certainly couldn't blame Veronica Mars.

 

She was retired, Veronica thought, as she looked about the old oak table at her family, well fed and happy and safe as they laughed and teased and complained and joked and dreamed their way through coffee and “just one more slice!” of Alicia's Christmas cake. Retired, she told herself, and content.

 

And if Veronica Navarro had been visiting the Mars Investigations office more than usual lately, it was just because her Dad was getting older, and his assistants had never quite figured out his filing system. It was because Leticia was thinking about taking the job as Keith's secretary, and it was fun to stir up her stick-in-the-mud eldest. It was because the kids were all at school now, and the garages were earning enough that she no longer needed to teach, and Eli was giving her that smirk that said “go on, girl, I know you want to ...”

 

It was because, she finally admitted to herself, the office needed a Mars, and Dad's old chair was way more comfortable than the stiff, straitjacket chairs at the school. And when she'd answered the phone yesterday, she'd said it without thinking.

 

“Mars Investigations – Veronica Mars speaking.”

 

Just because. It didn't mean she was back in business, or anything.

 

 _fin_

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet was one of several I wrote for the 12_daysofficmas community at LJ, in which the objective is to create as much fanfiction or fanart as you can between December 25th and January 6th. Go check it out!


End file.
